COLUMBUS, Ohio — Boise State’s president said the assertion his counterpart at Ohio State made Wednesday — that Big Ten and Southeastern Conference teams play a “murderer’s row” schedule — “is the greatest exaggeration I think we’ve heard this year in college football.”
Bob Kustra angrily responded to Ohio State president Gordon Gee’s statement that TCU and Boise State don’t deserve to be in the Bowl Championship Series title game even if they run the table. Gee said of the power conferences’ schedules: “We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor.”
Kustra had Ohio State’s last two schedules in front of him — the Buckeyes have played Southern California and Miami, in addition to several midmajors and directional schools — and said, “If they’re not playing the Little Sisters of the Poor, they’re playing the Little Brothers.
“I don’t mind somebody stating that they don’t think we ought to be in the national championship, but to do it with such erroneous information as Gordon Gee has used gets under the skin of all of us who thought university presidents were supposed to be standing for fairness, equity and truth.”
Gee, who has served as president at West Virginia, Colorado, Brown and Vanderbilt, also called a playoff system “a slippery slope to professionalism” while acknowledging a preference for the “mixed-up mystery” system of the BCS.
Leach slaps suit on ESPN
LUBBOCK, Texas — Former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach filed a defamation lawsuit against ESPN, accusing it of “slanderous and libelous statements” in its coverage of his treatment of receiver Adam James last season.
The lawsuit claims ESPN slandered him and also accuses ESPN of failing to retract statements it knew were false and damaging and helped lead to his firing from Texas Tech last December.
Footnotes.
Officials from the Mississippi secretary of state’s office are planning to interview Kenny Rogers, a recruiter who has said Auburn quarterback Cam Newton’s father, Cecil Newton Sr., requested $100,000 to $180,000 for his son to play at Mississippi State.
• The University of Oregon said allegations of impropriety surrounding Heisman contender LaMichael James and a vehicle he had been driving are unfounded.
Denver Post wire services
